


Passage

by meredyd



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:04:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meredyd/pseuds/meredyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's still Amelia, for a while longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passage

The next day she wakes to the fall of early morning rain soaking through her coat, unaware she fell asleep at all. There’s a brief hesitation, the moment after a dream fades where you can’t really be sure what’s real. Then her eyes meet the empty spot on the lawn.

Amelia curls her legs to her chest as her boots leave trails of growing mud all over. She bites her lip and doesn’t cry, just watches until her aunt calls for her.

 

In school they gave every child a little set of paints, red-yellow-green-blue-purple, in a plastic case that closes with a satisfying click. Amelia opens and closes and opens it again, lost in thought and still in her nightgown. She wets the brush and watches the stiff bristles expand in the paper cup.

To make the right shade for the Tardis she has to mix. The color isn’t easy to forget, but hard to capture exactly, and by the time that’s done it’s breakfast.

“So, Amelia,” her aunt asks, in the same careful way she always has with questions she knows she won't like the answers to, “What exactly were you doing in the garden last night?”

Amelia’s toast stops short of her mouth.

“Waiting,” she says.

“Waiting for who?” Sharon asks, gentle. Her brows knit. Amelia feels herself being watched too closely. “You left your suitcase outside, darling.”

She is distantly aware that being honest now is the wrong choice but does it anyway.

“The Doctor. A Raggedy Doctor. He ate the last of the fish fingers, you’ll have to buy more.”

“Oh,” Sharon says. “I see.”

They finish their breakfast in uncomfortable silence. Amelia spends the rest of the day working on her painting and when it’s done she looks at it proudly. The raggedy man and his box, Amelia Pond, his friend and first mate and companion to adventure. She tacks it on the wall, making absolutely sure to avoid the crack.

People come back. Mysterious, wonderful people come back. She knows that from her books. Amelia curls up under the covers with _Roman Myths And Legends_ and makes sure to leave the window open. The night is still damp, and cool.

When she sees him again (soon, soon, she tells herself) she’ll give him the picture. Maybe he can take her to Rome.


End file.
